


A Man Married Is A Man Marred

by stuffandnonsense



Series: The Sharing 'Verse [6]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Buffy and Angel discuss their history like grown-ups, Buffy still swears a lot though, Comics? What Comics?, F/M, Gen, Post-Series, cherry pie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:34:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27671426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuffandnonsense/pseuds/stuffandnonsense
Summary: Years of well-established coupledom under their belts, Buffy and Spike are visiting Angel and Sally in LA to hear a special announcement. Buffy realises there are some things she should probably “talk out” with Angel.Because it’s rude to scream, right?This is my Buffyverse Bingo contribution for the prompt 'All's Well That Ends Well'. Title is a slightly garbled quote from Shakespeare's play of the same name.
Relationships: Angel & Buffy Summers, Angel & Spike (BtVS), Angel/Original Female Character, Spike/Buffy Summers, past Angel/Buffy Summers - Relationship
Series: The Sharing 'Verse [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1127618
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19
Collections: Buffyverse Bingo





	A Man Married Is A Man Marred

She was being stupid. Buffy knew it. Worse, she knew that Spike had guessed exactly what she wanted to do, and even though he thought it was even stupider than she did, he was going to back her to the hilt anyway. She didn’t deserve him. Although she equally didn’t deserve the hours and hours of I-told-you-so’s he was sure to lay on her as soon as they left Angel and Sally’s apartment.

“C’mon, luv,” Spike said, grinning his best come-hither grin at poor, unprepared Sally for everything he was worth. “This sort of news definitely deserves something from Fondante’s Inferno.”

Sally’s eyes lit up. “Cherry pie?”

“We came down on the bike. Wanna come with me to pick it up?”

When he nodded, Sally did a little dance of joy. It was cute, and also kinda freaky because she was usually so buttoned-up. But then, she loved that damn motorcycle almost as much as Spike did, and nothing Sally could say or do would convince worry-guts Angel to get on one with her. Most importantly, though, there was very little Sally wouldn’t do for good pie. And that demon bakery made the best pie Buffy had ever eaten. That and the general wonderfulness of Spike were just about the only things she and Sally wholeheartedly agreed on.

Buffy plastered on the widest grin she could manage and said, “Darling, you took the words right out of my mouth.”

Spike met Buffy’s eyes and smirked so hard she could practically feel the derisory head pat from across the room.

Of course, all of this went completely over Angel’s head, and he just looked back and forth between the two of them with a grateful smile on his face. He was going to be so disappointed when he realised Spike was only getting Sally out of the way so Buffy could yell at him.

She just couldn’t let it go without comment that Angel had given Sally a claddagh ring.

-∞-

“Oh my god, do you seriously think I’m upset because of you and me?”

“What else am I supposed to think?” Angel’s whole face scrunched up. “I thought you guys would be happy for us.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “If you’d bought Corrine a ring, I would not have batted an eyelid.”

Now Angel looked completely lost.

“Sally’s a completely normal and powerless human being! After all that crap you pulled with me _for years_ about having a normal life? About babies and a house and how you could never give me any of that stuff?”

“Sally’s forty-seven,” Angel said flatly, but with the barest smidgeon of an indication he knew full well he wasn’t supposed to be telling anyone that. “She doesn’t want babies.”

“Holy shit she looks good for forty— Wait. That’s not the point!”

“So what is the point? That you liked Corrine, but you don’t like Sally?” In a petulant grumble, “And don’t pretend like that’s not true.”

Buffy let her head drop down into her hands and blew out a long breath of air. “Yes. It is true that I liked Corrine a whole lot more than Sally. I will admit to that. But Corrine was a pretty powerful witch, who at least had a snowball’s chance in hell of kicking your ass if she ever needed to. Sally is a poor, defenceless – and, I now discover, older-than-middle-aged – woman with no special powers, and if she makes you too happy, you will literally eat her for lunch.”

Angel looked like he’d been sucker-punched. “Don’t hold back or anything.”

Buffy sighed. “I’m not saying this to be mean.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“Look, you want to get married? Or whatever it’s possible to do when one of you’s immortal with no ID? Fine. More power to you. Even if it’s with Sally, who I do not like as much as I have liked some of your other girlfriends. God, that sounds so bitchy. But really, truly, I get that you’re happy with Sally, and that makes me happy for both of you and I think all that is just peachy with a side of keen, and—”

Angel raised one eyebrow, eerily reminiscent of Spike.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “It’s just that it seems pretty hypocritical, given all the spiel you gave me about loving me too much to come between me and a normal life. And you need to hear that!” Spike was never going to let her live this conversation down. Never. And she knew Angel'd tell him every word, even if she didn’t.

Angel blinked, then stared at her like a second head hadn’t merely sprouted from her shoulders, but launched itself into the middle of the room and started tap dancing. “You really think I ever thought you could have a normal life?”

Buffy’s heart stopped and her jaw dropped.

“I’m not stupid. I know what a slayer’s life is like – I know it now, and I knew it then. But it’s what you said you wanted. Over and over again, all you ever wanted was to be normal. You wanted to dance instead of fight. Be doing schoolwork instead of reading demon texts.”

Dazed, Buffy corrected him, “Neither would have been just fine by me.”

“You know what I mean. Willow helping you with your homework in between dances was a great night out. Every time I tried to talk to you about, well, about work, you ran a mile.”

If she hadn’t been so angry, she absolutely would’ve been speechless. “ _I_ ran? Mr Pops-In-And-Out-Mysteriously-Dropping-Hints-Without-Ever-Explaining? Oh, Buffy. It’s the harvest. Bye. Oh. Look, you survived. There’s a surprise.”

“I wasn’t that bad.”

“You _totally_ were!” Buffy folded her arms across her chest, feeling uncomfortably like she was in middle school again. “There were nicknames related to both your crypticness and your constant disappearing act.”

He frowned, as if she’d insulted him instead of reporting actual fact.

“I know.”

Buffy shot him a confused look.

“Vampire hearing.” He paused. “Also, none of your friends can whisper to save their lives.”

Buffy suppressed a snigger; he _so_ did not deserve broken tension yet, even if that was legitimately both true and hilarious. She put herself firmly back on track with the tirade-ing. “Not to mention the absolute wealth of information you failed to share about Spike and Dru … that was pretty spectacular.”

Looking more puzzled than anything else, he asked, “How many years have you been holding onto all this?”

“Too many,” Buffy groaned.

“Well … I’m sorry. Okay? I should have been less – what did you call it?”

“Cryptic.”

“Less cryptic.”

“Thank you.” That was _way_ too easy.

His face took on this sort of mischievous expression, and Buffy felt dread build up in her stomach.

“You know, while we’re on the subject of apologising for the past … the first few times we met, you hit me. Repeatedly.”

Buffy opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, trying to come up with any response at all that wasn’t ‘too soon, you total bastard’, until finally landing on: “I hit Spike way more.” Which at least had the benefit of being true.

Still looking like he was trying too hard to be mischievous, Angel said, smugly, “Have you still not figured out that’s his idea of foreplay?”

The temperature of the room dropped. A lot.

“Ex _cuse_ me?”

“I’m sorry,” Angel said quickly, holding out one hand placatingly. “I was trying to be funny, and that … wasn’t.”

Uncomfortably, Buffy said, “You can’t seriously still be jealous.”

Angel looked almost like he was in physical pain. “I’m in love with Sally. I’m not pining after you.” Off her look, he added, “Not anymore.”

That absolutely hadn’t been how she expected him to react to her patented ‘you’re an idiot’ look.

“You seriously think I’m vain enough to think that?” Buffy felt so out of control of this conversation, she just wanted to punch it until it died. And then maybe punch Angel for good measure. He could take it. “I meant your weird rivalry thing with Spike.” She snorted. “I am very aware I rate somewhere between claiming the last pint of blood in the fridge and being the first to yell ‘shotgun’.”

Angel looked up at her, showing the first signs of a genuine smile since he’d found out why Spike and Sally left. “Not to him you don’t.” He sighed. “I really do get that now. Honest.” He paused. “But none of this explains your problem with Sally.”

“I don’t have a problem with Sally!” It was a whine. Buffy wasn’t too proud to admit that – not to herself, at least. “I have a problem with you.”

“Right,” he said softly. He looked devastated. “Of course you do.”

Buffy only just stopped herself from screaming. Logic was the correct move here. Cold, hard, reason and logic. Not violence, auditory or otherwise.

“I just don’t understand how you could leave me for my own good as many times as you did – me: Slayer, The; Chosen One; most powerful girl in all the world – when your reasoning every single time was some combination of ‘humans deserve better than vampires’, and/or you couldn’t risk slipping your leash again. Wash, rinse, repeat. My problem – as I think I laid out pretty clearly five minutes ago – is that Sally is (a) human, and (b) completely unable to deal with Angelus. And yet you have presented Sally with a ring, and therefore given her some expectation of a long-term relationship that you, Angel-slash-Angelus, cannot possibly expect to live up to.”

He bowed his head, more deflated than embarrassed, but then mumbled, “He loves her too.”

“What did you just say?”

Angel shifted around until he was sitting up straighter. “I said, ‘he loves her too’.”

“That’s what I thought you said. Only that can’t possibly be right, because you’ve been arguing for as long as I’ve known you – hell, for as long as _Spike’s_ known you – that it is impossible to love without a soul.”

“I was wrong.” He shrugged, the vaguest hint of a goofy smile slipping through the cracks.

Buffy blinked. “Okay, first, seriously? This is something you’re only just realising now?”

“You know that thing they say about how you have to experience something yourself before you believe it….”

“So Spike and Dru practically screaming it from the rooftops _while you lived with them both for decades_ is, what, chopped liver?”

“Dru never loved him.”

“Oh, she did. Trust me.” Buffy shivered, as she always did when she thought about that day in Rome when Dru could’ve drained her dry and didn’t, for Spike’s sake. Even though he was on the other side of the world, and Buffy was still absolutely refusing to take his calls.

Angel looked sceptical. “You believe that if you need to.”

“Wow.” Buffy laughed. “But I see we’re completely ignoring how much he loved her?”

“Spike’s … not a normal vampire. He likes human things too much.”

Buffy briefly looked down at her beautiful boots to remind herself that she had the kind of life now where she was allowed nice things. Duly fortified, she looked back up at Angel. “But your little epiphany about vampires and love still isn’t something you thought you should maybe talk about with at least one of the two people you’re probably closest to in the whole world? When both of us have been kinda seriously impacted by that particular belief?”

“Spike knew.” Angel tried to make himself look smaller, scrunching in his shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

“Of course he did.” Buffy counted to ten in her head. “Sworn to secrecy as well, was he?”

“Uh, maybe?”

The imagined I-told-you-so’s suddenly got a whole hell of a lot worse.

“Look, Buffy, I just … Spike and I have sorta been talking about it for a while. Mostly about Darla.”

Buffy pinched the bridge of her nose. Spike mentioned in passing – months ago – that he and Angel were talking about Darla, and she’d told him in no uncertain terms she wanted to be left out of it. He’d seemed relieved, but she’d let it go because … well, _Darla_. “Let me guess: you realised there was no conflict about your feelings for Darla, which you’d always assumed meant you never loved her. And suddenly, in the absence of conflict about Sally, you started wondering whether you’d really loved Darla all along, even though she was a bitch that no sane person would ever love?”

“Spike told you, didn’t he?” Angel sounded betrayed.

Buffy restrained herself from asking him – yet again – why he always seemed so shocked when she was well-informed about things in his and Spike’s shared past. Had he _met_ Spike before? The guy was barely capable of keeping happy surprises a secret unless it was life or death. _Of course_ he talked to her about his past, and particularly when that past included Angel because _he was their friend_. There wasn’t much she didn’t know about the Whirlwind by this point, gory details aside. Plus, given Angel’s tendency to lie to himself to make the facts fit his worldview better – before you even start in on the lying to other people – she probably knew that part of his history better than he did.

“I just said that I guessed,” Buffy said, very calmly, but with a nearly-unhinged smile Spike would have immediately rushed to placate and Angel didn’t even recognise as dangerous. Boy, was this conversation ever driving home that she’d picked the right vampire. “Do you have any idea how messed up you made me? And him, for that matter?”

Angel huddled in on himself like he always did when he was getting ready to blame himself for All the World’s Problems. (Buffy could recognise it immediately because she had her own version.)

“I’m not unaware.” He paused. “It’s actually something Sally and I have talked about a lot.”

Buffy sighed; she’d leave the rest of that conversation to Sally. For all her many, many faults, she was infinitely better about the practicalities in making up for Doing the Wrong Thing than Buffy ever had been. Buffy just forgave or … didn’t. “How come you never told me you were just going along with what you thought I wanted?”

Like a total pro, Angel went straight along with the subject change. “Honestly? I was terrified. I’d never even tried to put anyone else first before, and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”

“I guess that’s kind of fair,” Buffy said quietly.

“I lost my soul before I had the chance to really talk to you about our relationship, and when I first came back, you were dating that very normal … kid. What was I supposed to think? I wasn’t making decisions for you, I was doing what I thought you wanted. You were just too young to see it.”

Any fellow-feeling fled quicker that an oiled eel on a waterslide. “Jeez, what were you expecting? I was a teenager! I didn’t know what I wanted next week, let alone next year. You didn’t take me seriously when I said I never wanted to drive a car again, did you? Why the hell did you take me seriously when I said I hated slaying?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe it’s all my fault. But I never understood why you loved me. I always thought _I_ was the phase.”

“I’m sorry you felt that way, but Angel, you could’ve asked me. Any of the many, many times I begged you to stay, in fact. But you never did. And while that assumption might’ve worked for leaving after prom, it doesn’t hold water any of the times we saw each other while I was in college.”

“You were dating Cardboard!”

“You and Spike really need to spend less time together.” Buffy’s brain suddenly caught up. “Wait, what the hell are you talking about? We split up _months_ before my mother’s funeral!”

Angel opened and closed his mouth, visibly shocked, and then he said. “I didn’t know.” He thought about it. “I think Willow mentioned he wasn’t in the picture anymore, the day she came to LA to tell us that you, that you died.”

“Fuck my life.”

“Buffy….”

He was making the save-me-from-my-misery baby-fawn eyes. There was a time she would have belly-crawled, naked, over barbed wire to make that look go away. “Please do not make me repeat how very, very not interested I am in you romantically.”

He sighed, slumping. “Does it make it any better to say that if you’d been with Spike back then, I would’ve fought for you?”

“Really not.” She rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “What about Cordelia? I kinda got the impression you’d moved on, what with the whole blowing off my request for help with the hell god that ultimately killed me.”

Angel’s face did that strange thing where he looked like he’d swallowed a lemon and had a second one shoved up his ass. “I didn’t blow you off.”

“Sure felt like it.”

“Every time I offered to help you back then, you yelled at me!”

“Because every time you offered, I didn’t need it!”

Now he seemed wounded. “So why didn’t you ask?”

“What did you think I was doing at my mother’s graveside when I was begging you to stay?”

Angel gaped like a particularly addlepated codfish. “I thought you wanted to get back together.”

“Yes, because my love life was definitely my first fucking priority when I was grieving for my mother and terrified for my sister’s safety.” Buffy could practically hear Spike in her head convincing her not to kill Angel, right here, right now, when he’d be guilty and surprised and probably just let her do it. And Spike was right. He was. Because when Angel wasn’t shoving both feet in his mouth like a starving man at an all-you-can-eat buffet, he was a very close friend and someone she cared about very much. Truly. “You are so goddamned self-absorbed it makes _Cordy_ look like Mother Teresa.”

“You do realise Mother Teresa basically tortured children with terminal illness, right? She had this whole thing about how suffering made you godlier.”

“The common perception of Mother Teresa,” Buffy snarled, longingly imagining the relief of punching him until his mouth was swollen shut and the Speaking Stopped. “And you knew exactly what I meant.”

Angel, oblivious to his near escape, smiled grimly. “I still loved you.”

Buffy’s eyes darted upwards, slightly nervously. “Can Cordy hear us?”

“If she can, and she cares, I’m absolutely positive it’s me she’ll be mad at. Besides, she can hardly go after the Chosen One.”

Buffy laughed. “I’m not worried she’s gonna try and kill me. I’m worried she’s gonna play ghostly practical jokes and make my life a misery.”

“Oh,” he said. “Well. Yeah, I guess I can see her doing that.”

He had this soft smile on his face, the genuinely happy kind that would be mistaken for constipation by anyone who didn’t know him very, very well. God, she’d forgotten how awkward Angel was with any kind of emotions. Usually when they hung out they talked about normal stuff like what movies they’d seen and how to get ichor out of whites. “Wow,” Buffy breathed. “You really did love her, didn’t you?”

Angel squirmed. It was low-key hilarious, but Buffy was very good and didn’t laugh. Well, there was a small amount of smirking. Maybe she was the one that needed to spend less time around Spike….

“Do you really love Sally?”

“Yes.”

“So why aren’t you desperate to distance yourself from her for her own protection? I just … after Corrine died.” Buffy shrugged helplessly. “We didn’t think you’d let yourself get serious about anyone ever again. And certainly not this soon.”

There was a flash of pain across his face, and Buffy immediately felt terrible for bringing Corrine up. He was definitely still grieving and, honestly, Buffy doubted he’d ever stop. He would absolutely have killed himself if she and Spike hadn’t stepped in to watch him every second of every day those first few months. If ever two people had been meant for each other, it was them. Which made it all the weirder that it was _Sally_ of all people that Angelus decided to care about. But then again, he’d loved Darla. No accounting for taste.

“If I’d met Sally any earlier, it never would have worked,” he said haltingly. “I … she sees _me_ , you know? Evil, good, mooching on the sofa, it doesn’t matter. With Corrine … whatever else we were to each other, she was also a … a co-worker? Together, we were dedicated to fighting evil. To fighting part of _me_.”

Angel turned to Buffy, hands out in supplication, obviously looking for her to find the right words for him. Which was so wrong, because he should have accepted by now that they both depended on Spike to articulate their feelings for them. God knows Buffy had. She just waited. Angel would get it or he wouldn’t. And either way, Spike should be back fairly soon to help if they needed it.

“Sally thinks the whole concept of making up for the past – of looking for redemption – is more ego than anything else. That you can’t fix or undo your mistakes, just learn from them.”

Buffy nodded. Spike had been saying similar things for a long time. He worried that Angel was doing some kind of penance in LA because he thought he deserved to suffer. In her less charitable moments, Buffy worried he was doing the same thing with Sally.

“Sally’s spent her whole professional life helping people with violent pasts reacclimatise to normal life. First in Ireland with terrorists and paramilitary groups, and now in LA since the battle. It’s … I can relax with Sally in a way I never could with Corrine. She can—”

Buffy got it. “You don’t have to pretend with her.”

Angel nodded, visibly relieved.

Buffy smiled, tired. “You probably _can’t_ pretend with her, can you?”

He shrugged, that goofy smile trying to escape again.

Suddenly, Buffy felt like she’d spent the last half-hour patiently explaining to a roomful of six-year-olds that there was no Santa. True, sure. Cathartic, maybe. But worth the pain it caused?

She’d been so focussed on Sally’s lack of physical and magical strength, she’d never even thought about how the _therapist_ part might be relevant. How had she missed that?

Of course, that was when Spike and Sally came back. She had her arm around him and they were laughing about something.

God, Buffy would have to find a way to _like_ Sally now.


End file.
